Mounting evidence confirms that gender-smart solutions in agribusiness can increase the sector’s productivity and profitability and lead to stronger, more integrated value chains. IFC will present the business case for gender in agribusiness and share key findings of two recent IFC publications that offer concrete examples and guidance on how companies can increase their profits and productivity by investing in women as part of their direct workforce and as smallholder farmers/agents along agribusiness value chains.

The ACDI/VOCA Zambia Profit+ program and their process of building women’s capacity to become entrepreneurs through the Community Agro-dealer (CA) model will be showcased. The Zambia Profit+ program encourages women to become entrepreneurs and links them to market actors and opportunities while also providing capacity building, access to resources, and increased agency/empowerment. Zambia Profit+ recently completed a qualitative impact assessment of the Community Agro-dealers (CAs) that demonstrated a link between women’s participation as CAs, increased income and economic agency as well as social empowerment and household nutrition. The study showed CAs are investing income toward both household and business needs, and they are seen as leaders in their communities because they provide information, technologies and other services which the communities could not previously access.

The WEAI4VC (Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index for Value Chains) is an ongoing effort by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) to adapt the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index to provide metrics for women’s empowerment in multiple stages of the value chain. It involves the modification, testing, and quantitative and qualitative validation of modules that aim to measure women’s empowerment not only as producers, but also as entrepreneurs and wage earners, in Bangladesh and the Philippines. The work in the two countries is closely related, though each has a slightly different emphasis. In Bangladesh, the main objective is to find out whether women are most empowered as producers, entrepreneurs, or wage earners, whereas in the Philippines, the objective is to examine women’s empowerment in different commodity value chains—abaca, coconut, seaweed, and swine. The work in Bangladesh and Philippines is supported by USAID and the Millennium Challenge Corporation, respectively.

These brief presentations will be followed by a panel discussion moderated by Chris Brett.

Bio of Speakers:

Christopher Brett, Lead Agribusiness Specialist, Agriculture GPB, has more than thirty years’ experience of working within the public private and voluntary sectors in Africa, Asia and Latin America. Prior the World Bank, he worked for 9 years as the Global Head of Sustainability for a large multi-national agricultural supply chain management company. He has a Master’s Degree in Management for Agricultural Development from Cranfield University in the United Kingdom.

James J. Emery is Head of Economics and Strategy for the Manufacturing, Agribusiness and Services Industry Department at the International Finance Corporation (IFC). In this capacity he is responsible for developing and communicating IFC’s strategy to promote economic development through sustainable private investment in these sectors. Jim monitors global trends in these sectors and works to increase the development impact of IFC’s operations. He manages a small team of industry economists and strategists providing economic analysis on the projects IFC supports. He was previously in a similar Strategy leadership role for IFC in the Sub-Saharan Africa region. Mr. Emery is also the gender co-champion for MAS.

Nathalie Hoffmann, Gender Business Specialist, IFC Gender Secretariat, promotes the cross-cutting efforts to integrate gender into IFC’s investment and advisory activities and supports the implementation of gender-smart business solutions in client companies. She focuses specifically on enabling companies to address gender gaps in employment and agribusiness value chains, and thereby drive gains in productivity and competitiveness. She is the co-author of Investing in Women along Agribusiness Value Chains. She holds an MSc in International Management from the University of Bath, UK.

Dr. Agnes Quisumbing is a senior research fellow in the Poverty, Health, and Nutrition Division of the International Food Policy Research Institute, Washington DC, and leads the Cross-Cutting Gender Research Theme at the Institute. She co-leads a research program that examines how closing the gap between men’s and women’s ownership and control of assets may lead to better development outcomes. Her past work at IFPRI analyzed the factors that enable individuals, households, and communities to move out of poverty over the long term, and on how resource allocation within households and families affects the design and outcome of development policies. She was a co-developer of the Women’s Empowerment in Agriculture Index (WEAI), that is currently being used by 60 organizations in 39 countries to monitor the impact of their programming on women’s empowerment. A citizen of the Philippines, Quisumbing joined IFPRI in 1995. She received her Ph.D. and M.A. in economics from the University of the Philippines, Quezon City, and her A.B. in economics from De La Salle University in Manila.

Jenn Williamson is Senior Director of Gender and Social Inclusion at ACDI/VOCA, managing the Gender and Behavior Change Unit in the Technical Learning and Application Division. She oversees and leads strategic gender equity, female empowerment, and social inclusion initiatives, including adoption and implementation of ACDI/VOCA’s policy for promoting gender equity. Dr. Williamson holds a B.A. in Studies in Women and Gender and English from the University of Virginia as well as an M.A. and Ph.D. in English, with a concentration in gender, race, and intersectionality, from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.